City Songs and American Life, 1900-1950

An insightful look at the urban sensibility that gives the Great American Songbook its pizzazz.

Nothing defines the songs of the Great American Songbook more centrally than their urban sensibility. During the first half of the twentieth century, songwriters such as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and IraGershwin, and Thomas "Fats" Waller flourished in New York City, the home of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Harlem. Through their songs, these artists described America — not...